1. Fields of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to vending machines, and more particularly, to improvements to an individual cigarette vending machine.
2. Discussion of Background and Prior Art
Vending machines that dispense cigarettes individually have been developed to overcome certain prior art problems such as growing health and social concerns of smokers in reducing their amount of smoking, complicated and expensive coin and bill changers for handling large bill purchases, and massive floor space occupied by conventional cigarette machines. In particular, a single cigarette vending machine was developed and disclosed by Mr. Ronald Laidlaw in his copending patent application entitled "VENDING MACHINE FOR INDIVIDUAL CIGARETTES" Ser. No. 07/967,788 filed on Oct. 28, 1992 and in his copending patent application entitled "COIN OPERATED VENDING MACHINE FOR VENDING INDIVIDUAL CIGARETTES FROM A CIGARETTE MANUFACTURER'S CONTAINER" Ser. No. 08/138,685 filed on Oct. 18, 1993.
In both of these applications, a hopper having a dispensing member mounted to its bottom end was disclosed as being coupled to a coin mechanism. A plurality of cigarettes was loaded into and retained by a hopper, and the rotation of the coin mechanism rotated the dispensing member to dispense cigarettes from the hopper.
In these applications, however, the hopper was integrally mounted to the coin mechanism such that the hopper was practically fixed to the vending machine. This integral mounting of the hopper created the problem of having to take off an entire front panel of the machine to disengage the inboard end of a coin mechanism from the outward end of the dispenser member before the hopper could be removed from or inserted into the machine during loading and reloading operations. As a result, this problem made it a very cumbersome task for the person who would have to load and reload the hopper with cigarettes.
Furthermore, in the copending application filed on Oct. 18, 1993, the dispensing of a single or a plurality of cigarettes for each turn of the coin mechanism was achieved by either interchanging the dispensing member or filling the axial slots in the dispensing member with slugs depending on the desired number of cigarettes to be dispensed for each turn of the coin mechanism. Therefore, the integral mounting of the hopper also made it a difficult task for a person having to interchange the dispensing member or insert slugs into the dispensing member since the entire panel and coin mechanism assembly of the machine would also have to be dismounted in order to reach the dispensing member. Therefore, a quick release hopper, which avoids these cumbersome tasks of dismounting various parts of the vending machine in order to reach the hopper and dispensing member is desired.
Also, in the prior copending applications, the dispensing member is disclosed as having a general cylindrical, peripheral surface and at least one axial slot, that is round or angularly shaped. The problem with the features of this dispensing member is that the cigarettes could still be misaligned or jammed between the hopper wall and the round or angularly-shaped slot of the dispensing member. This problem would then result in the malfunction or jamming of the vending machine. Therefore, an improved dispensing member, which overcomes the misalignment and jamming problems, is also desired.